Seriously, the hour or two I ran support I actually had a lot of fun as well. It kind of reminded me of playing a priest in Dark Messiah, which I had tons of fun with.

EVERYONE loves a good support guy. As a MAX, if you can keep me healed and repaired, I'll give you my little Vanu babies.

The only problem I am running into now is that I am nearing that 7-day mark, so I am going to have to settle on a couple of certs. I think I am going to stick with the Uni-MAX cert, and the Air Support cert to start with. I like to tell myself that I'm ok in a MAX, and I would really like to get better with a Liberator (I really want to get into a Vulture eventually). I guess I would eventually also pick up Combat Engineering, so that I can repair my aircraft.

Fear the Backstab!"Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion"Hell is other people." -Sartre

Why settle? Make multiple characters with multiple roles. I had my main character, heavy infantry/medic/engineer, a secondary character, MAX/tanks/BFRs, and a pilot and infiltrator that never got very far because I'm not a good dogfighter or sneak.

Piloting ANTs has made me feel more worthwhile than any other activity I've tried.

It works best to get one from a base near a warp, get it full of NTUs and drive it to the base where it will be required WELL in advance of hack completion. Park it under a bridge inside the base. They're comfortably well armored and not particularly high priority targets.

farther refers to physical distance, further refers to metaphorical distance, father refers to emotional distance

Piloting ANTs has made me feel more worthwhile than any other activity I've tried.

It works best to get one from a base near a warp, get it full of NTUs and drive it to the base where it will be required WELL in advance of hack completion. Park it under a bridge inside the base. They're comfortably well armored and not particularly high priority targets.

Actually ANTs are high priority targets if they think you are trying to resupply a base that you control that's low on NTU that's under attack. In a massive attack try and find a Galaxy pilot who can drop you straight into the courtyard (dicey if the enemy has air superiority) but watch out for mines around the silo. The rest of the time I find it more efficient just to cruise around on my own to the bases my side already controls and fill them up rather than tag along with the attacking forces. On attack I find I'm more useful driving an AMS if I'm in a support role. Also, try to get as many people into your squad that need exp if you are doing ANT runs. Everybody gets the same experience no matter how many people are in the squad. Finally if the base that you are refilling is heavily damaged you can keep deploying the ANT to top it off since the base will drain the silo pretty quickly as things get auto-repaired.

Yeah, nothing says, "HOO RAH!" like air-dropping an ANT out of a Galaxy that's being chased by skeeters (they didn't have wasps when I left) into a base where people are still fighting to recharge the silo at the last second. Of course, the odds of surviving it are slim. You can bet that they'll drop an orbital strike on the silo the moment they realize you're charging the base, but hopefully you'll get enough NTU back into the silo to hold the base until they can be driven out.

I have discovered that I;m only good at dying. I think I might cert combat eng and see how that works out.

I might suggest the Sensor Shield Implant, available at BR6. If you aren't shooting, repairing, etc, it conceals you from most radar. It does take a couple of minutes to come online after you respawn, but I've found it cuts down on the number of times I meet a chain gunner coming around a tree on full auto. I even won one of those meetings with a few good rounds from my Pulsar.

Another thing I've gotten fond of is the special assault Rocket Gun, which is great vs BFRs, and moderate against armor and aircraft. The 'fire all in magazine setting' is great for those cases when you are sure you are going to die as soon as you open up, but the delay before the first shot can be a bit tricky, timing-wise. I've seen the RG turn a number of fights, particularly vs BFRs, which make nice big targets, particularly if they stop to get a good shot. Don't compare it to the Punisher, the ROF makes a huge difference with the same ordinance, and the AA is much better.

The other special assault weapon, the thumper, can be equally effective in close in infantry fights, but it is tricky to use. One short round in a base fight racked me up 293 grief points. Best to take it up front, where only the bad guys are in front of you. Charging around a corner where 3-4 bad guys are staging for a rush may only get you a couple of shots. but I've seen those couple of grenade rounds can leave those guys low on armor and health before they go into the fight, and the fight may well be following me around the corner, so that can be a real difference maker.

Finally, as an engineer, be wary of planting all your mines and spitfires at your base. It is the natural inclination, but I'd suggest loading up an ATV with ACEs in the sanctuary when you start, and then warp gating and driving to a forward area, where you plant your stuff near the action, allowing the enemy to do your recycling for you, and plant some stuff at your respawn base after you get killed.

Also, I never seem to run out of Motion Sensors, and I find they are good for wasting the enemy's time. You can use several of them and a few mines and/or Spitfires to construct a phony position that the other side will probably either avoid or assault. Also, if something is chasing you, dropping a motion sensor can make them think you are leading them into an ambush.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.

Charging around a corner where 3-4 bad guys are staging for a rush may only get you a couple of shots. but I've seen those couple of grenade rounds can leave those guys low on armor and health before they go into the fight, and the fight may well be following me around the corner, so that can be a real difference maker.

Set to secondary fire (2 or 3 second delay) and bounce the grenades around the corner. This is one of the main uses of Thumpy. I love Thumpy. Thumpy likes to blow apart friendlies, as mentioned, so it's a tricky one to learn, but pretty nice. You can load Thumpy with three kinds of ammo, I have a couple different presets in my favorites. A little slow on the reload and ammo swapping, though.

Actually, I just changed a BR6 guy (Smokamotive) into a baby version of my TR grunt: rexo, special assault, anti-vehicle (or is it AA?). So that's a decent BR6 setup (I took the adv targeting implant because I like to see the health bars).

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Also, I never seem to run out of Motion Sensors, and I find they are good for wasting the enemy's time. You can use several of them and a few mines and/or Spitfires to construct a phony position that the other side will probably either avoid or assault. Also, if something is chasing you, dropping a motion sensor can make them think you are leading them into an ambush.

I mostly play stealth engineer, and it's mostly mind gaming and misdirection. Item placement is an art, and a good engineer duel is fun. I try to set up an AMS for inventory, though I just got advanced hack so I can use enemy terminals, too, now. If someone's chasing me, I prefer dropping spitfires unless I have a solid emplacement. They'll usually slow up to destroy them so I can drop another.

As a BR6, I use Rexo armor for the capacity. I try to fill up on ACEs before a fight, lay down some emplacements, then load up a punisher with full variety ammo except AP bullets and with maybe an extra rocket pack, armor and vehicle repair tools with lots of reloads, 4-5 ACEs, and maybe a REK. I generally places my ACEs where I go to work, and then concentrate on keeping the troops in action. Things get quiet, I get some more ACEs. Things get too hot, I may pull out the Punisher.

I tried the stealth route, but the cargo capacity is so sucky. If I was going above BR6, I'd add it to my abilities, but the tricks are a bit specialized for general use. Invis is really an offensive build, I'd say.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.

I use stealth, that's why I have AMS, too. I have a repair/deploy preset using the regular armor when it's not too hot to deploy. I like to deploy under fire and without backup alot, though. Here, have this lovely boomer.

Lol when Strazos was trying to figure out why the 12hour lock I did it too. Found out that my original guy (Scuffy BR11 TR Emerald) was a 2 year veteran, had a sniper rifle (the medium power 10 shot one), and a couple of awards.

We need to post what builds most are going, I'll usually be a vehicle guy (tank, lighting, eventually the deliver variants, and air support and engineering). Game companies love me as I sign up for years and just freaking renew (planetside, toontown, CoX) and play on and off as I feel like it. I would be willing to go caveing if we have a full squad.

Lol when Strazos was trying to figure out why the 12hour lock I did it too. Found out that my original guy (Scuffy BR11 TR Emerald) was a 2 year veteran, had a sniper rifle (the medium power 10 shot one), and a couple of awards.

We need to post what builds most are going, I'll usually be a vehicle guy (tank, lighting, eventually the deliver variants, and air support and engineering). Game companies love me as I sign up for years and just freaking renew (planetside, toontown, CoX) and play on and off as I feel like it. I would be willing to go caveing if we have a full squad.

I've been waiting for folks to be able to get a feel for what they like before trying to really organize squad wide loadouts.

We've been having what seems to be a lot of fun with gal drop based takedowns, so if people as a whole do like that we can press that way. Normal gal drop roles:

Hacker--rexo for survivability, adv hack, other : they get us in the doors, and are actually the most critical role--they --have-- to survive, or be ressable.Max x 2 (or x4 if we have two gals, or we hack a term on the way in)--mix of AI and AV are good, but we are honestly mostly meat shields.Heavy inf x 3-4: lashers, rexo. Main firepower.Decimator x 2-ish (3 is really good for the insta-kill)--these guys have one responsibility: kill the maxxes. Deci's are king for this--3 shots to kill a max.Combat Support: 2-3 adv med + at least normal engineering--these are critical for being able to sustain waves of attacks.Special Assault--?: good for 'nades, etc, etc.

You can of course swap this up, but it's well rounded and can get us in and secure to pretty much any of the normal drops once we get our teamwork down!

Another really cool thing to do by the way is mass armor columns--it takes a LOT more practice, but a coordinated column of 6-7 mags and a skygard or two totally dominates an outdoor fight--it's just a bit limited at BR6 when you have to go indoors, since you've used up 7-ish cert points for drivers and repair.

One important trick that they never tell you is that you can save vehicle loadouts at the little vehicle repair silos in bases. More importantly, you can fill the trunk up with handgun ammo/medkits/hacking tools/ACEs/etc, and save that at the repair silo. So, if you're a CE, you can take a buggy, fill the trunk up with ACEs, roll over to a repair silo, save the configuration, and the next time you have that buggy you just have to drive over to the silo to instantly get a trunk full of ACEs. This is a gargantuan time saver.

Also, several vehicles have a crappy default ammo loadout. Like 10,000 machine gun rounds but only 30 shots for the main turret. It often behooves you to take a look at the ammo in the trunk and shuffle the numbers around a bit to a more realistic ratio.

Pretty much the only toon I play now is Diziet But she's got the versatility to do pretty much anything in the game at this point, so why go anywhere else. (And also you see why I'm not particularly inclined to leave the NC)

Tuned in, immediately get to watch cringey Ubisoft talking head offering her deepest sympathies to the families impacted by the Orlando shooting while flanked by a man in a giraffe suit and some sort of "horrifically garish neon costumes through the ages" exhibit or something. We need to stop this fucking planet right now and sort some shit out. -Kail

Pretty much the only toon I play now is Diziet But she's got the versatility to do pretty much anything in the game at this point, so why go anywhere else. (And also you see why I'm not particularly inclined to leave the NC)

Oh, and for all the would-be pilots out there, practice practice practice flying. Cert up, grab an aircraft in the sanc, find the closest forest and fly through it. Weave between the trees as best as you can. You'll probably explode a bit, but keep at it. Then do it faster. Then do it on afterburner. If you can skim ten feet off the ground while dodging tree trunks at full speed, you'll be in good stead for flying in a fight. As a side note, hitting the deck and going into a forest is a good way to lose pursuit, just watch out for mines. They will detonate against aircraft if it's skimming the ground. Also, nobody really thinks to watch for a Galaxy that's following a road and only twenty feet in the air.

Oh, and for all the would-be pilots out there, practice practice practice flying. Cert up, grab an aircraft in the sanc, find the closest forest and fly through it. Weave between the trees as best as you can. You'll probably explode a bit, but keep at it. Then do it faster. Then do it on afterburner. If you can skim ten feet off the ground while dodging tree trunks at full speed, you'll be in good stead for flying in a fight. As a side note, hitting the deck and going into a forest is a good way to lose pursuit, just watch out for mines. They will detonate against aircraft if it's skimming the ground. Also, nobody really thinks to watch for a Galaxy that's following a road and only twenty feet in the air.

Heheh..you should have seen my lib escape out of all the AA fire last night. Nothing more adrenaline rushing than to go from max altitude to ground level while -within- a city (I had to climb OVER the front door catwalk since there were vehicles in the way), then dropping back down to skimming down the road and then dodging trees...all with a sliver of vehicle health left.

Sadly, I popped a mine on the way to the back of the tower and we died :(

Oh, and for all the would-be pilots out there, practice practice practice flying. Cert up, grab an aircraft in the sanc, find the closest forest and fly through it. Weave between the trees as best as you can. You'll probably explode a bit, but keep at it. Then do it faster. Then do it on afterburner. If you can skim ten feet off the ground while dodging tree trunks at full speed, you'll be in good stead for flying in a fight. As a side note, hitting the deck and going into a forest is a good way to lose pursuit, just watch out for mines. They will detonate against aircraft if it's skimming the ground. Also, nobody really thinks to watch for a Galaxy that's following a road and only twenty feet in the air.

Wonder if this will work for my suspect Galaxy piloting :P Not sure how many trees I will be weaving in and out of.

Oh, and for all the would-be pilots out there, practice practice practice flying. Cert up, grab an aircraft in the sanc, find the closest forest and fly through it. Weave between the trees as best as you can. You'll probably explode a bit, but keep at it. Then do it faster. Then do it on afterburner. If you can skim ten feet off the ground while dodging tree trunks at full speed, you'll be in good stead for flying in a fight. As a side note, hitting the deck and going into a forest is a good way to lose pursuit, just watch out for mines. They will detonate against aircraft if it's skimming the ground. Also, nobody really thinks to watch for a Galaxy that's following a road and only twenty feet in the air.

Wonder if this will work for my suspect Galaxy piloting :P Not sure how many trees I will be weaving in and out of.

It does help--a lot. Given that a Gal has a wider wingspan, you'll want to get a feel for how close the trees can be, but I practice low level flying a lot just to stay out of line of sight/radar while on run ins for drops.

I tried a bit of early morning pilot practice, flew in on a base being attacked, there are a Mosquito, a Reaver, and a Lib just sitting over the target waiting for somethjing to happen. I come in at full speed, start lighting up the Mosquito, don't take my finger off the gas until I've already slid past the Mosquito, and run right into the Reaver, like I'd run a red light at rush hour. Naturally they blew me right up, but I bet that woke them up a bit.

Came back later in an AA MAX and got some easy xp off the Reaver trying to strafe me. Afterburner don't help if you fly straight into the missiles.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.

Oh, and for all the would-be pilots out there, practice practice practice flying. Cert up, grab an aircraft in the sanc, find the closest forest and fly through it. Weave between the trees as best as you can. You'll probably explode a bit, but keep at it. Then do it faster. Then do it on afterburner. If you can skim ten feet off the ground while dodging tree trunks at full speed, you'll be in good stead for flying in a fight. As a side note, hitting the deck and going into a forest is a good way to lose pursuit, just watch out for mines. They will detonate against aircraft if it's skimming the ground. Also, nobody really thinks to watch for a Galaxy that's following a road and only twenty feet in the air.

Wonder if this will work for my suspect Galaxy piloting :P Not sure how many trees I will be weaving in and out of.

Yes, I've hit the deck in Galaxies and Liberators before. It's... quite the experience. You definitely want to be in third-person view for that. They can't fit in any kind of dense forest, of course, but you can still weave through fairly tight terrain, canyons, between a forest and a base wall, etc. Anything to get you cover from people locking onto you, all it takes is a tree limb to block LOS and break a lock. While if you're way up in the sky where everyone can see you, there's nothing at all to stop everyone from shooting at you. Good pilots stay low when interacting with ground forces.

Oh, and for all the would-be pilots out there, practice practice practice flying. Cert up, grab an aircraft in the sanc, find the closest forest and fly through it. Weave between the trees as best as you can. You'll probably explode a bit, but keep at it. Then do it faster. Then do it on afterburner. If you can skim ten feet off the ground while dodging tree trunks at full speed, you'll be in good stead for flying in a fight. As a side note, hitting the deck and going into a forest is a good way to lose pursuit, just watch out for mines. They will detonate against aircraft if it's skimming the ground. Also, nobody really thinks to watch for a Galaxy that's following a road and only twenty feet in the air.

Wonder if this will work for my suspect Galaxy piloting :P Not sure how many trees I will be weaving in and out of.

Yes, I've hit the deck in Galaxies and Liberators before. It's... quite the experience. You definitely want to be in third-person view for that. They can't fit in any kind of dense forest, of course, but you can still weave through fairly tight terrain, canyons, between a forest and a base wall, etc. Anything to get you cover from people locking onto you, all it takes is a tree limb to block LOS and break a lock. While if you're way up in the sky where everyone can see you, there's nothing at all to stop everyone from shooting at you. Good pilots stay low when interacting with ground forces.

Third person is for wussies!

Hehe...I only use third person when flying for doing combat landings inside a base so I can time my flare well. Otherwise, its all first person for me...although I can agree that it might be useful for some while flying low level.

I was with Sturmgrenadier for about a year, and some of those guys treated Gals and galdropping like an art form. We'd drop entire infantry platoons, with tank and AMS support, into courtyards. Nothing says 'surprise' like three Vanguards at the vehicle terminal.

The lesson they learned was that the best way to fly a Gal (and Lodestar) was to learn where allies were, especially allied aircraft. They would then fly over a target, drop their troops, and bug out either to the nearest concentration of friendly aircraft (Air Towers, usually) or some place where no one would look for them, like the middle of the ocean.

If enough of the outfit was on, you'd have a squad entirely aircraft for each infantry squad (or two). Even then, the Gal would still run for that repair station and AA MAX cover.

Galaxys may be tough and all that, but their capacity to defend themselves, or even to support landing infantry, is an illusion, and that was before the appearance of the Wasp. The only defense a galaxy has is its armor, and the only way that is worth anything is delaying the inevitable. Gals are also high-value targets, so people will try to shoot you down even if they are about to be shot down themselves. So learning where to flee at any given moment is as important as learning how to flee.

We now return to your regularly scheduled foolishness, already in progress.

I got like six or eight stealth boomer kills in a firefight last night. Killed twice from damned darklight guys, but that's a great ratio, and I wasn't teamkilled...Funniest one was a guy who kept spinning in circles with his shotgun, knowing I was there, but no darklight. Right inside a TR base we were zerging.

I got like six or eight stealth boomer kills in a firefight last night. Killed twice from damned darklight guys, but that's a great ratio, and I wasn't teamkilled...Funniest one was a guy who kept spinning in circles with his shotgun, knowing I was there, but no darklight. Right inside a TR base we were zerging.

I hate you fuckers that do that. So I have the audio implant cranked. Hear you move and plant the boomer, get out of dodge, kick in the darklight and light you up. I killed about a dozen cloakers like that the other night.

Tuned in, immediately get to watch cringey Ubisoft talking head offering her deepest sympathies to the families impacted by the Orlando shooting while flanked by a man in a giraffe suit and some sort of "horrifically garish neon costumes through the ages" exhibit or something. We need to stop this fucking planet right now and sort some shit out. -Kail

I haven't seen this suggested yet, but the best exp for a n00b is AMS (Ground Support). You will get support xp every time someone who spawn at your AMS gets a kill. Look for heavy fighting. Put your AMS under some kind of cover if possible. If there is a courtyard battle, put your AMS near the backdoor. It is possible to get 4-6k of SEP in a few hours (but maybe you don't care as a Reserve.) You can also get your Bronze AMS merit quickly, if that matters to you.

I always keep AMS certed. Certs that complement AMS: CE, sniping. Don't surround your AMS with spits/mines as it will become obvious there is an AMS in the middle of them. I like to stagger spits in a line from the AMS towards a base or tower. Anyone with CR3 can reveal CE and figure out your AMS location.

f13bhodi is a Rexo Grunt/engineer/AV. The pulsar is my new favorite weapon. I like it better than the lasher, since indoors I'll use the sweeper shotgun anyway.

I have two main loadouts, Rexo Indoor and Rexo Outdoor; Indoor is sweeper+decimator (pulsar in inv), outdoor is pulsar+lancer (sweeper in inv). Frankly, the decimator is almost always better than the lancer, I may just switch out and use decimators exclusively.I've got two Rexo AV-buster loadouts, one filled with decimators and one filled with lancer and ammo.Rexo Full ACE loadout (nothin' but ACEs), Rexo engineer loadout (Has medkits, ammo, etc.)

My goal is to always be in rexo armor; I have ATV cert so I can buggy around, but I don't intend on taking any pilot certs with him. When I hit BR10, I'll probably drop adv engineering for sniper so I can be a rexo sniper+lancer. I had fun with that a few days ago.

bhodisupport (only 2 p's) Is a pilot/support. If he's not in a vehicle, he's useless. Still within 7 days, so I'm having fun trying stuff out. I tried it last night and found I'm a pretty good reaver/mosquito pilot. He's got engineering so he can repair vehicles, and ground support and currently the pts to fly a reaver. I'll probably add air transport to the list as he goes up in levels.

I load my reaver with nothing but rockets; I don't generally use the chaingun unless it's versus another air target, and the weapon itself holds something like 200 rounds which is plenty. I don't use 3rd person unless I'm doing a landing. I also found I suck at tanks, I think I'll stick to the air.

I also completely suck at stealth work, but my third character will be a stealth hacker+engineer... when i get bored of what I'm doing now.